the proceedings, "as a token of acquiescence and obedience as in the sight of God."

treated as rebellion.

Refusal to do so has been

The ministry is divided into itinerant and local preachers. These, again, are divided into probationers, deacons, and elders. The candidate for the ministry is first licensed on trial. If at the end of two years he approves himself as a man of God and as otherwise efficient, he may be elected a deacon by the Annual Conference, upon which he will be solemnly ordained by the laying on of hands by the bishop and elders. He may also be received into the itinerancy. If he serve faithfully in this capacity for two years more, he may be elected an elder by the Annual Conference, upon which he will be ordained as such by the laying on of hands by the bishop and elders. These are the only two orders in the church.

The episcopacy is an office, not an order. The bishops are elected only by the General Conference for a term of four years, but not ordained or consecrated as such. They may, however, always be reëlected. Originally the episcopacy was practically unlimited in its power and tenure, and was so exercised by the first bishop of the church, Jacob Albright, in the absence of a written law. The law remained practically unchanged until 1839, when the General Conference more clearly defined the powers of the episcopal office. During the interval from Albright's death, in 1808, till 1839, there was, however, no bishop in office.

The bishop has no arbitrary power. His functions are clearly defined. He stations the preachers, with the assistance of the presiding elders. He transfers preachers from one charge or district to another, with the consent of the presiding elders. He may transfer a presiding elder, during the intervals between Annual Conferences, with the consent of a majority of the preachers on the

district. He has no power to transfer from one conference to another. He has power, where circumstances require, to suspend a preacher pending a trial. The office is one of great influence and grave responsibility. It imposes the care of all the churches. It necessarily involves large discretionary power, and great deference is paid to the opinion and wish of the bishop.

The bishops of the Evangelical Association have been the following:

Bishop Jacob Albright, elected in 1807, died in 1808; Bishop John Seybert, elected in 1839, died in 1859; Bishop Joseph Long, elected in 1843, died in 1869; Bishop William W. Orwig, elected in 1859, died in 1889 (served one term);

Bishop John J. Esher, elected in 1863 (still in office); Bishop Rudolph Dubs, elected in 1875 (deposed in

1891);

Bishop Thomas Bowman, elected in 1875 (still in office); Bishop Sylvester C. Breyfogel, elected in 1891 (still in office);

Bishop William Horn, elected in 1891 (still in office).

Upon the general subjects of moral reform the discipline contains strong prohibitive clauses against slavery and the manufacture and use of and traffic in intoxicating liquors. The Evangelical Association never had a slaveholder in its membership. The General Conference in 1839 adopted a rule declaring slavery and traffic in human souls a great evil, to be abhorred by every Christian, and strictly forbidding any member from holding slaves or trafficking in the same. This was long before the antislavery agitation by Garrison and his compeers really took hold of the nation.

The same General Conference also adopted a rule prohibiting our members from making, preparing, dealing in,

or using, as a drink, spirituous or intoxicating liquors except as a medicine. The preachers were enjoined from countenancing or encouraging the manufacture or sale of liquors. This was in 1839, in a church composed at that time almost exclusively of Germans. And to this day no member of the Evangelical Association could lawfully be a liquor-seller or drinker.

CHAPTER V.

INSTITUTIONS AND CLOSING OBSERVATIONS.

FROM the beginning, the work of the Evangelical Association was essentially of a missionary character. It was to bring the gospel to every creature, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. The preachers labored with zeal and self-denial for a merely nominal salary, barely sufficient to keep them in clothes. They traveled by day, preached evenings, and prayed and studied by night. In fastings often, in perils by water and by evil men, they pushed through forest and desert from one pioneer settlement to another, along the picket-line of civilization, preaching in barns, log-cabins, schoolhouses, halls, or wherever men could be induced to congregate. There were no churches at all at first. erected in 1817, at New Berlin, Pa. frame structure 34 × 38 feet in size.

The first one was
This was a plain

After that church

The

edifices were erected here and there, but at first of the plainest pattern, with neither tower, bell, nor debts. pews are always free.

About 1837, however, John Seybert, through the “Christliche Botschafter," directed attention to the need of more systematic missionary effort. The editor, Rev. W. W. Orwig, ably seconded his efforts. The agitation aroused. the church, so that, at its session, March 28 to April 4, 1838, the Eastern Conference organized the first missionary society in the church. It was called The German Evangelical Missionary Society of North America."

Its first president was William W. Orwig. Its first cash collection amounted to $26.50; its contributions for the first year of its existence amounted to more that $500.

Hitherto the church had been strictly confined to home mission work. But now her heart was yearning for other fields. Macedonian calls reached her ears from Canada and the interminable West. The missionary spirit was awakened. The necessity for a general missionary society soon became apparent, to which the conference missionary societies should be tributary. Accordingly, March 1, 1839, a meeting with this in view was held in the house of John Dunkel, in Union County, Pa., at which John Seybert, George Brickley, and William W. Orwig submitted the draft of a constitution for such a society, which was adopted. This organization was subsequently approved and adopted by the General Conference which met March 25, 1839, in Centre County, Pa. As that conference also dissolved the Eastern and Western Conferences, and created three new conferences, viz., the East Pennsylvania, West Pennsylvania, and Ohio, the missionary society of the Eastern Conference, called "The German Evangelical Missionary Society," also passed out of existence, and was afterward reorganized as the Missionary Society of the East Pennsylvania Conference, auxiliary to the Missionary Society of the Evangelical Association. The affairs of the society are managed by the General Board of Missions, composed of the officers of the society and one delegate from each of the Annual Conference auxiliary societies. It makes the necessary appropriations and provides for the extension of the work. During the interval between its meetings, which are annual, its affairs are managed by an executive committee. The headquarters. of the society are in Cleveland, O., where it is duly incorporated under the laws of Ohio.